Today's News

The Building Kindness Program of Habitat for Humanity is now accepting applications for its home repair program. Applicants must provide proof of need, own or pay a mortgage on their home, be willing to help the volunteers, reimburse Habitat for materials and live in the areas of Española or Los Alamos.
Drop by the Habitat ReStore in Española at 726 N. Riverside Dr. for an application, or call 505-901-7689 for more information.
Applications are also available in Los Alamos at Self Help 662-0107.

Today
CANCELED: The LAHS NJROTC will host a barbecue brisket dinner from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Posse Lodge on North Mesa. Dinner includes brisket, potato salad, vegetable, a roll, drink and dessert fro $10 per plate.

Friday
Fish fry from 5-7 p.m. at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church. Dinner includes fried fish, coleslaw, rice and dessert. Tickets are $10 for adults and $7 for children and may be purchased at the door or through the IHM Youth Office. Proceeds benefit the IHM Honduras Missionaries, the Knights of Columbus and the Youth Work camp.

The Public Service Company of New Mexico, BHP Billiton’s San Juan Coal Company and the Sierra Club have filed a settlement that would result in an additional, larger groundwater recovery system adjacent to the San Juan Generating Station and the San Juan Coal Mine near Waterflow.
Filed Thursday with the United States District Court for New Mexico, the settlement needs court approval for the system to be constructed.
Under the agreement, a new groundwater recovery system would be built to enhance the current water management system by capturing groundwater downstream of the generating station and the mine and incorporating a subsurface water barrier.
The captured water then would be diverted to an evaporation pond at the power plant site.

Los Alamos second baseman Nick Baker squares for a bunt during the first inning of the Hilltoppers’ game against the Santa Fe Demons Wednesday. A big top of the first propelled the Hilltoppers to a big road win.

Even though Los Alamos doesn’t have a distracted driving ordinance on the books, the state does.
The Los Alamos County Police Department is looking to ramp up enforcement, as part of Distracted Driving Awareness Month in April.
Thousands die each year as a result of distracted driving, which can include chatting on a cell phone, texting or playing with a toddler in the back seat, according to the National Safety Council.
Lt. Jason Wardlow-Herrera said people are 23 times more likely to be involved in a car accident if they’re driving while distracted. And while Los Alamos hasn’t seen many accidents to warrant it’s own distracted driving ordinance yet, he said it’s still something to look out for.

At the 60 percent review of a proposed Community Broadband Network, several residents advocated for extending wireless services, rather than creating a fiber optics network.
When County Council Vice Chair Ron Selvage made the motion to move the project forward to the 90 percent review, he also included a directive that staff conduct a study of a wireless option comparable to one gigabit (Gbps) of fiber, which would be in addition to, but not in place of, fiber.
Information Technology Project Manager Estevan Gonzales and Acting Administrative Services Director Laura Gonzales returned to council with the results of the wireless study Tuesday night.

In the past, many people stayed at one job, or at least one company, for almost their entire working lives. When they retired, they could typically count on a pension, the value of which was based on their years of service and earnings.
But today, workers can expect to hold several different jobs in their lifetime, and to a great extent, pensions have been replaced by 401(k) plans, which place much of the funding responsibility on employees. So, assuming you will change jobs at some point, and you do have a 401(k), what should you do with it?
Here are your basic choices:

SANTA FE — What do we do with dumb laws? There are so many on the books. Do we ignore them? Challenge them? Change them?
The problem with changing dumb laws is that they were created to solve touchy problems So messing with them ventures into sometimes sacred territory.
The latest example in New Mexico involves voter registration. Some yahoo with a cause registered his dog to vote. Nothing original with that stunt. We read about it in the papers every so often. The media treats it as a humorous prank. Nothing is said about consequences for the prankster or tightening of registration laws.

The Los Alamos boys rugby team will host a home match Saturday.
The match is scheduled for 1 p.m. at Sullivan Field. Admission is free.
Los Alamos is going into the match, against St. Pius X, off a 22-7 victory over Las Cruces. Mateo Cardiel, Isaac Koh and McKay Parkinson scored tris in the match and Parkinson also had a conversion.